Lifting With A Plan

The programming madness has come to an end.

I am running Steel's squat program as laid out in Train Like An Athlete and benching as he lays out in his Get A Big Bench  program, unless he recommends that I bench as he lays out in Train Like An Athlete too (I'm awaiting a reply on his forum).

I like the structure of percentages and periodization. There is more than one way to skin a cat and there is certainly more than one way to get strong, but for me, I think this is just the way to go.

So, today I squatted and I did: 140x10x2 (1 min rest between sets)
Chins: 4 ladders, 3 rungs.
Rows: 67.5 x 5, 5, 6.

BW: 88.1kg

Sit Ups Are A Great Conditioning Tool

Whole bunch of push ups and sit ups

A Day In The Gym

Bench: 100 x 7 (singles on the minute)

Sumo DL: 185x2x4. Pussed out after the fourth rep. Did another set to make amends.

Chins/Burpee: 5/10, 5/10, 5/10

Capture The Flag

Played for about 45mins with the kids at school. Plenty of sprinting - one helluva workout

Is 3 The Magic Number?

I think it could be so this is going to be my new program:

Greyskull Methods Style (people often say GSLP but I prefer Greyskull Methods) training with sets of 3s as well as heavy doubles or singles. So, a 2x3 and a 1x max rep set on a given day followed by the doubles or singles for that same lift later in the week. Main lifts will operate in this fashion, other exercises will operate under a 2x5 + 1x max rep or 2 sets in the 12-15 rep range.

Eg.

Tuesday:
Bench/Press: 2x3 + 1xMR (max rep)
Squat: 2x3 + 1xMR
Curl variant: 2x 12-15

Thursday:
Press/Bench: 2x3, +1xMR
Lateral Raises (on Press day)/Dips (Bench day): 1x15-20
Rows: 2x5 +1xMR
LTE (Lying Tricep Extension): 2x5 +1xMR
Pull Up ladders

Saturday:
Bench/Press: Heavy singles, doubles or a triple
Squat: Heavy singles, doubles or a triple
Deadlift: 1xMR

I'm going to pick moderate weights to start with and go from there.

You could look at my training lately and say I've been "programme hopping". That would be one way to look at it but I prefer to say that I am experimenting and learning for myself about how I like to train. I've never stopped going hard, no matter what I've been doing, so I don;t see what it matters to be honest.

This is what I did today:

Lateral Raises: 8x15 + 5 standing

Press: 62.5x3, 3, 8

Rows: 65x5, 5, 8

LTE: 40x5, 5, 12

Pull Ups: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.

Bodyweight: 88.9kg.

Yep.

Cricket Balls

Spent 6 hours retrieving cricket balls for an event in the schools athletic carnival that I'm doing my teaching practice at. The kids threw the ball as far as they could, I retrieved it and threw it back. There must of been 10 classes with 15 kids each and each kid got 3 throws so that's somewhere in the vicinity of 450 cricket balls. it was hot as hell too.

So after that, I hit the gym up and during my squat warm up my legs were shaking. My knees and hips were aching from spending all day bending over and picking up cricket balls (I feel like I'm going to have nightmares about cricket balls). I felt like going home. It felt like I couldn't squat for shit. Then I realised going home wasn't going to improve my squat and decided to at least do a couple of doubles. I had planned on doing 182.5x6 but didn't feel like I had it in me.

After my first double I got loosened up a bit and ended up doing 182.5x4x2. So all in all, not a bad session.

Got my Greyskull shirt in the mail too. Looks awesome and fits perfect. It's been a tough couple of weeks in the gym but I'm sure the little piece of Greyskull will give me the extra 10% moral boost I need at the moment.

DB Bench: 42x6, 36x8. These didn't feel good. I'm having trouble rocking back with the weight and using my knees to propel the weight in a starting position with my elbows locked out. Tried to do it and strained my front/side delt in some way. Thinking about going back to barbell bench.

Squat: 182.5kg/401.5lbx4x2.

Seated Alternate Dumbell Curl: 14x15, x10 +3 standing. What the fuck. This was a 3rep PR! haha.

Wanna Feel Good? Run Till It Hurts

Ran a 300m hill, walked down the other side, jogged for about 500m, turned around and sprinted up the other side of hill. I was in some pain but man it felt good.